Dear Sara, my sweet, dead Sister,
Happy New Year, Sis (whatever that might mean to you). This is when living people make promises to do better in the future. Remember New Year Resolutions? I imagine it’s “being here and now” for you these days, dear Sara. The Present. (“That’s why it’s called a gift,” a voice on the radio told us once.)
Presently, I wish to teach Tai Chi in the New Year.
This past September, I led a class called Introduction to Tai Chi, at Karen’s Yoga Circle Studio, and the experience introduced me to the notion of teaching Tai Chi outside in our riverside park pictured above, where I do Tai Chi every morning.
I began doing Tai Chi facing the Snohomish River in Kla Ha Ya Park when we were renovating the old St Michael Church in 2000. Twenty years later, I led a Tai Chi class on Wednesdays at the Monroe Y. It was nice to be paid, and I learned a lot by incorporating lessons from the “Harvard Medical School Guide to Tai Chi” into my class.
Nearly two years in, as a member of the Monroe Y family, the leadership requested a video excerpt of us leading our classes, the first step in a plan to upgrade teaching throughout the Monroe Y. I am posting below the clip I submitted in early January 2020; soon, COVID-19 was called a pandemic, my classes were canceled in March.
Of course, I never got a reaction to my clip, but I’m happy I saved it so I can share with you, Sis, and our cozy gathering of readers … how sterile the Tai Chi Forms seem to me when done indoors.
With the pandemic shutdown I began doing Tai Chi in the park both mornings and evenings, with the setting sun. Here is the lead into a poem I posted on March 25, 2020.
The river was blue this morning, a Sunday,
it was a mirror holding the soft blue sky —
a surface of stillness.
Post #17. Surface of Stillness
I was researching “Forest School” on the internet[s] when I found this eye-catching image of children in their “classroom” and decided to post it here as inspiration for learning Tai Chi outdoors.
Doing Tai Chi in our park offers the experience of walking the Snohomish Riverfront Trail. I’ve had the picture above on my phone for years but never posted it online. Perhaps my subconscious was saving it for this special moment. Who knows?
Three birds standing on the branch of a log stuck in the river. It's a magical new perch, a high-water gift, I enjoy every day.
This is the spot. We’ll meet here at 8a, Saturdays. Participants follow my lead through Cloud Hands, and the 24 Forms, which takes less than five minutes, so we do the forms several times — plan on a 30-minute duration — but then you can come and go as you wish; it’s not really a class, so there is no cost.
I know this letter reads more like a manifesto than a resolution. I’m using this letter to you, Sis, as a sounding board for my ideas and plans. And my poems:
Many mornings doing Tai Chi in the Park, I'm left alone with the River -- it's an awesome responsibilty.
Until next month, dear Sara, thinking of you every day —
A word of gratitude for our living readers as we begin the New Year —Thank You! If you are new to this letter, follow this link for the background of our monthly Letters to Sara, and if you enjoyed reading this letter, please share it with a friend. Thanks ~w.
Warner, I have used the relationship between presence, the present, etc. and a gift myself. Though it was original with me, I was sure it was hardly anywhere near the first utterance. Probably the same for the voice on the radio, as well. Sounds like it might have been Keillor. But it's application to Sara and a "here and now" resolution was touching and original.
I really liked the third poem a lot. It had humor and pathos. In the second poem "the high-water gift" and "a new perch" seemed technically contradictory to me. Maybe I think too much. Because it flows nicely past on first read.
So, we keep writing because, like Flaubert, we hope to melt the stars.